


Open Road

by KageOtogi



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: FrostIron - Freeform, SHIELD has lousy taste in cars, Teambuilding exercises for fun and profit, What Happens In Vegas..., impromptu roadtrips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-15
Updated: 2013-09-15
Packaged: 2017-12-26 14:59:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/967316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KageOtogi/pseuds/KageOtogi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one save Thor is particularly thrilled by Loki becoming an official member of the Avengers, but Loki somehow manages to charm the team into accepting him as one of their own. Or, well, most of the team. Tony manages to maintain his completely healthy and rational suspicion, of course, but with the other Avengers, Pepper Potts, and SHIELD conspiring against him, who knows how long that will last?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Open Road

No one save Thor is particularly thrilled by Loki becoming an official member of the Avengers, and the way Loki rolls his eyes when Thor promises everyone Loki can be a valuable, trusted member of the team isn't exactly reassuring. Fury doesn't want to risk pissing off whoever is dealing out judgment in Asgard, though, so he gives it the go-ahead and Thor moves his brother into the tower, apparently making it a done deal.  
  
Bruce is the first one who suggests giving Loki a chance to redeem himself, and after a week of the god hanging around Bruce with no sign of the Other Guy, Steve follows suit. Natasha resists a little while longer, but one morning Tony heads into the kitchen and finds her sitting at the table with Loki, drinking coffee and swapping grisly interrogation stories, and he knows she's gone dark side.  
  
Clint has every reason in the world to want nothing to do with Loki, what with the brainwashing and being forcefully turned against his comrades and all, but Natasha declares Loki a nonthreat and somehow convinces him just to talk to the god. Clint takes precautions, including but not limited to making Tony pinky-swear to suit up and come after him if he hasn't emerged within an hour, but in the end he does give in. He and Loki close themselves up in Loki's room and, forty-eight minutes later, Clint emerges. He doesn't seem possessed, although he makes Natasha thwack him one on the back of the head to make sure, and after that he seems satisfied.  
  
“We're not best friends or anything,” he explains to Tony later, “but it'll be fine.”  
  
“You're joking.”  
  
He shrugs. “Dude's messed up. He wants to make it right though, so I guess that's something.”  
  
Tony eyes him. “Are we positive you're not mind-controlled? We could hit you a few more times to make sure.”  
  
Clint laughs. “Shut up, Stark. I've got this.”  
  
Sure enough, Clint stops notching an arrow whenever he and Loki are in the same room, which is serious progress for him, and while neither archer nor god seem too eager to spend a lot of one-on-one time with each other, they're at least not openly antagonistic.  
  
Tony still isn't convinced.  
  
“He threw me out a window,” he reminds Steve. “I almost _died_.”  
  
Steve is not impressed. “Figure something out. He's going to start going on patrols with us and it's not going to help anyone if you're second-guessing his every move.”  
  
“You can save the kumbayas for Bruce and Loki can play nice for the rest of you all he wants.” He waves a screwdriver in Steve's general direction. “I'm not buying it.”  
  
Pepper, at least, is on his side. When she tracks Tony down at the tower, the first thing out of her mouth isn't the usual “I need you to sign...” or “The board of directors wants...”. Instead, she gets close to him and hisses, “Why is _he_ here?”  
  
Tony snaps his fingers to get U's attention. It takes a couple tries. “Haven't you heard? Apparently he's on work release. With the Avengers.”  
  
She stares, mouth falling open. “You're joking.”  
  
“Nope. Oh, and don't bother arguing with anyone here about it. They've all tasted the Kool-Aid. They're goners.”  
  
“But he's a _murderer_. The body count he left behind...”  
  
Tony makes a face. “Yeah, definitely don't mention _that_ to Natasha. Tried it. Apparently it's a touchy subject.” Dumm-E rams hard against the table, shaking it, and Tony points a wrench at him. “Watch it or I'll take you apart and make you into a toaster. I mean that.”  
  
Dumm-E whirrs. Pepper shakes her head.  
  
“This... This is not okay.”  
  
“Preaching to the choir, Pep.”  
  
“I'm going to talk to Steve.”  
  
“I already tried that, I told you.”  
  
Pepper doesn't look at all swayed. “Then I'll talk to Loki.”  
  
“Yeah, you... What?” He looks up from his tinkering. “Pep. Pepper. Potts. No. Bad idea. You don't get in the face of a psychotic mass murderer, all right? You just don't. It's not something people do.”  
  
“You did.”  
  
“ _Sane_ people. Sane people don't do that.”  
  
She ignores him, though, and she's out the door before he can stop her.  
  
A couple hours later, she comes back, looking at him with that hangdog look that she usually reserves for when Tony's done something very, very disappointing, and says, “We've decided you're going to drive Thor and Loki to Virginia this weekend.”  
  
Tony shakes his head. “I'm sorry, can you say that again? I had some crazy in my ear, so I didn't quite catch that. I'm doing what?”  
  
“Fury needs Loki at some secure facility in Virginia and Thor is going with him. I volunteered you to drive them there.”  
  
“What happened to 'this is not okay', Pep? I liked 'this is not okay'. It made sense. Let's go back to that.”  
  
“Tony...”  
  
“No. Are you being brainwashed? Natasha's really good at hitting people to make them not brainwashed anymore if you want to check on that. I can probably have her paged.”  
  
She sighs. “Tony, this will be good for you. For the team.”  
  
“Now you're taking a page from Steve's book?” He drops his wrench onto the worktable. “I'm not doing it. Put them on a jet or something, it's faster, and if Loki misbehaves they can jettison him out an emergency exit.”  
  
She gives him one of those long-suffering looks he's come to know all too well. “Tony.”  
  
“Well, it's not like it would hurt him.”  
  
“No.” She shakes her head. “This will be good. It'll give you both time to get to know each other.”  
  
He groans. “Et tu, Potts?”  
  
“SHIELD will provide the car. They'll even reimburse all your expenses, not that you need it.” She pushes Dumm-E back when he gets too close to bumping into her hip. “It'll be ready at nine Saturday morning. You should thank me – I negotiated that up from four am.”  
  
“Pepper...”  
  
She smiles. “It'll be fine.”  
  
He gives up any semblance of productivity and shoves his latest project away from him on the work bench. “You're a traitor,” he decides, standing.  
  
“Where are you going?”  
  
“I need to talk this over with the only friend I have left.”  
  
“Rhodey?”  
  
“Scotch!” And his doors don't slam – they aren't designed to slam – but JARVIS takes his cue and manages to slide the lab door shut very emphatically.  
  
Good ol' JARVIS.  
  
#  
  
Saturday eventually rolls around and even though Tony offers to loan SHIELD and, by association, the gruesome duo his own private jet, nothing comes of it: he walks outside the tower that morning and there's a car waiting for him. It's a fucking seventh generation LeSabre, as though this could get any worse, and the SHIELD agent who hands over the keys doesn't look any happier about the situation than Tony feels.  
  
“Be gentle with her,” he says.  
  
Tony considers the car and then offers the agent a raised eyebrow. “That was a joke, right?”  
  
It's not a joke, but Tony doesn't have time to point out that it's a _LeSabre_ , and not even a good LeSabre, before Pepper is there and detailing the itinerary.  
  
“It's a four-hour drive from Manhattan to Virginia,” she says. “The GPS is already programmed with the correct coordinates, so just follow it, please, don't get creative. The facility is expecting Loki there by two o'clock, so please keep any breaks to a minimum, all right? And don't let Thor out to explore. He apparently has a habit of that. And --”  
  
“Chill, Pep, I don't want to spend any more time on this than absolutely necessary. I'll break the sound barrier to get there, trust me. Or I'll try. They sent a LeSabre that's probably legally allowed to drink. I'll be lucky if I can get up to highway speeds.” The SHIELD agent who dropped off the car shoots Tony a sideways look. Tony ignores him and twirls the car keys around his index finger. “So where are the Brothers Grimm anyway?”  
  
“Friend Tony!”  
  
“Never mind.” Tony turns and lifts a hand to greet the t-shirt clad thunder god. “Hey buddy. Where's tall, dark, and crazy?”  
  
Thor blinks at him, his grin wavering just a moment, and then laughs. “He is experiencing some difficulty with the garb provided to him. He will be along shortly.”  
  
“Great.”  
  
Once Thor is in the car, Pepper turns a frown on Tony. “What happened?”  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“When I brought this up the other day you would have jumped out a window to get out of this. What happened?”  
  
Tony shrugs and pops the collar of his jacket. “I thought it through. Genius, remember? It's win-win for me. Either I piss him off, he kills me, and I get to say I told you so next time you play with a Ouji board, or I piss him off, Thor keeps him from killing me, and he gets carted back to Asgard for violating alien parole.”  
  
Pepper smiles, just barely. “Or you could end up liking him.”  
  
“Fat chance.”  
  
“Hm. And how do you plan to annoy him enough to break the conditions of his parole?”  
  
They both stop talking when Loki stalks out of the house, and Tony's not entirely sure that's because they're shocked by his wardrobe – jeans and a t-shirt, and probably the first time ever Tony's seen this guy out of armor – or because they don't want him to overhear Tony's genius plan. Either way, they both wait until he's in the backseat of the LeSabre and the door closes before they look back at one another.  
  
“So how are you planning to irritate him, exactly?” she asks again.  
  
He holds up his iPod. “I'm armed to the teeth.”  
  
She shakes her head. “Fine. Just get going. You're already running behind schedule.”  
  
“No kiss goodbye? You might be sending me off to my death. You don't know.”  
  
Pepper turns away, back from whence she came, and glances at him briefly over her shoulder. “I think I'll take my chances,” she decides, and walks off.  
  
Tony sighs and looks to the car, where Loki is sprawled out in the back seat and Thor is twisted around in the front seat, talking animatedly. This is going to be a disaster, he can already tell, but since there's nothing much he can do but get it over with, he steels himself and joins them.  
  
An hour or so later, Tony comes to the horrifying realization that Loki actually doesn't _mind_ Air Supply. Or Rebecca Black. Or even the Biebs. Thor does, and complains vehemently, and when it finally occurs to Tony that maybe Loki doesn't mind _because_ Thor hates it, he turns it off.  
  
Thor complains about that, too, because Tony is too busy sulking to hold a conversation and Loki is content to ignore him, and apparently Thor doesn't take silence – or boredom – very well. It also turns out that Pepper was right, and Thor wants them to stop every ten minutes or so so he can go out and explore.  
  
“Tony, look yonder! That city boasts the world's largest light bulb!”  
  
“Loki, look! Lady Jane tells me those trees house the electricity. We ought inspect them.”  
  
“That beast would make a worthy mount! Let us forsake this machine and ride!”  
  
“Brother, look! _Windmills_!”  
  
At the last one, Loki huffs and rolls his eyes, catching Tony's gaze in the rearview. Tony almost – _almost_ – smiles, but he catches himself. No. He won't be caught that easy, even if Thor is the worst passenger in the history of ever.  
  
Thor is in the middle of imploring Tony to take a side trip – “The road signs say it is a mighty house made of pancakes!” – when Loki finally says something.  
  
“Brother,” he says, and Thor perks up like a puppy offered a treat. “Perhaps we could switch seats for a time? The view back here is most pleasant.”  
  
Tony suspects Loki just wants the extra legroom and is about to protest when Thor whole-heartedly agrees and tries to climb into the back seat _while the car is still in motion_. Tony yelps when he gets Thor's rear in his face and the car swerves. Horns blare. Tires squeal. Tony is pretty sure he hears someone scream. He definitely sees his life flashing in front of his eyes.  
  
Loki shoves Thor back into his seat just as Tony swerves to the shoulder of the road. Tony stays stock-still, giving his near-death experience time to sink in, and he hears Loki sigh.  
  
“You're an imbecile, Thor,” Loki says, and slides out of the back seat.  
  
Tony is still a little too shaken to say anything as the brothers swap seats – if he's going to die, he'd really rather it be something more exciting than a car crash on the Jersey Turnpike – and so all he does is catch Loki's eye as he does up the seat buckle.  
  
“Try anything and I'll ram your side of the car into a semi-truck.”  
  
A smile quirks the corners of Loki's mouth. “Well, aren't we off to a marvelous start?”  
  
“I'm serious,” Tony says, and merges back onto the road.  
  
Thor falls asleep just half an hour later, and Loki is so suspiciously silent, head turned toward the window, that Tony assumes he's dozed off as well. He's read about parents taking their kids on long car rides to get them to fall asleep, so while he didn't know the trick worked just as well on Norse gods, he's not complaining.  
  
#  
  
Outside Jersey the roads clear up, which is a good thing since Tony jumps about a foot and swerves into the next lane when Loki clears his throat.  
  
Loki, fairly gamely, acts as though he doesn't notice. “This venture was no machination of mine, you realize.”  
  
“No, right. Why would you want to be stuck in a confined space with the brother you can barely stand and the badass who blasted you thirty feet last time you went toe-to-toe? Between Thor's hammer and my suit, we could kick the crap out of you.” He taps his fingers against the steering wheel. “Nah. This is way too feel-good movie-of-the-week. It's got Clint's grubby prints all over it.”  
  
“Mm.”  
  
They're silent for a long moment before Loki glances sidelong at him.  
  
“You are not currently in possession of your suit,” he notes.  
  
Tony shoots him a look. “I was serious about ramming you into an eighteen wheeler. Watch it.”  
  
The threat doesn't have the desired effect; Loki just smiles.  
  
“No,” he says. “Of course.” And he falls quiet again.  
  
The silence doesn't last much longer. Thor snores, apparently, and every single exhaled roar shakes and rattles the car. Seeing as how the guy has been living under Tony's roof for a few weeks now, Tony isn't sure how he missed this earlier, and he makes a mental note to give the guys who sound-proofed the tower some major kudos. Loki doesn't react to the snoring at all except to roll his eyes, and Tony glances his way.  
  
“Used to that, are you?”  
  
“We shared a room through early adolescence. If anything, we should consider ourselves lucky he is not unconsciously calling for a storm at the same time.”  
  
“Why's that?”  
  
Thor snores again before Loki can answer, and thunder rolls in the distance. Tony glares. Loki has the decency to look startled.  
  
“Coincidence,” he says. “But I suppose you'll get your answer.”  
  
Tony makes a face. “Not another word.”  
  
#  
  
The storm is a mild one, at least, and lasts maybe twenty minutes, tops, but Tony isn't trying his luck – he's seen the damage one of Thor's squalls can do – and he gets Loki to wake Thor up. It probably would have been a better idea to specify _how_ Loki should wake him, but Loki's method (which involves a small electric shock, the irony of which escapes no one) is pretty effective. Thor wakes with a start and looks around, taking in the scenery.  
  
Loki starts counting down from twenty under his breath, and Tony is just about to tell him to knock it off when Loki hits 'four' and Thor says, “Friend Tony, the road left leads to a museum of wax! Let us embark!”  
  
He ignores Thor and glances Loki's way. “How'd you know?”  
  
Loki just arches an eyebrow, the slightest of smiles playing on his lips. “Whatever do you mean?”  
  
#  
  
The rest of the trek is relatively uneventful. Thor runs out of fun-sounding landmarks, Tony manages not to eject Thor from the car despite Loki's less-than-subtle suggestions to the contrary, and by the end of the drive Tony can at least admit he doesn't _hate_ Loki. They guy isn't going on Tony's 'People of the Year' list – not by a long shot – but aside from teasing and playing tricks on Thor, Loki is more or less a model passenger. He can kind of see why everyone else has warmed up to him.  
  
Kind of.  
  
The security surrounding the Virginia compound is laughable, and after a quick check at the gate Tony parks the car in the almost-empty lot and turns in his seat.  
  
“What is all this for, anyway?” he asks.  
  
Loki blinks at him. “You don't know?”  
  
“No...”  
  
He frowns. “Then it really is not appropriate for me to tell you, I think.” He turns around and jabs at Thor. “Up, you useless half-troll. There's work to be done.”  
  
Thor barks a laugh. “Ormstunga,” he says, and apparently that means something to Loki, who smirks. He undoes his seatbelt. “I come, Loki.”  
  
Tony frowns. “Wait. Thor knows what's going on in there?”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“And I don't even get a hint?”  
  
The brothers exchange a glance just before they get out of the car. Thor offers Tony a small, somewhat apologetic smile.  
  
“It is something of a personal matter,” he says. “We would not want to burden you with it, my friend.”  
  
“A personal matter involving the government? And SHIELD? What, do you guys think I was born yesterday?”  
  
Loki makes a thoughtful, humming noise. “In comparison...”  
  
“Screw you both. And what am I supposed to do, sit here and twiddle my thumbs? I drove all the way here. I should at least get to go inside and get a cup of coffee.”  
  
Thor shakes his head. “I think they would not appreciate it,” he says. “Even the agents that escorted us on our last venture were asked to wait.”  
  
Tony stares at him, then slumps in his seat and scowls. “Fine. Go. I don't care. I'll be here. But you guys are making this up to me later, I swear to Oppenheimer. You hear me?”  
  
Loki only sighs. “Later,” he says as he walks away, and Tony isn't sure if that's meant as a promise or a goodbye.  
  
He's not sure he knows which one he'd prefer.  
  
#  
  
It's only an hour and a half before Thor and Loki show up again and by then Tony has made a mental note to give Happy a raise, gotten bored with every one of the two thousand features on his cell phone, and has started to reverse engineer the GPS to make it shoot lasers. He looks up when Thor taps on the window and he unlocks the doors to let them in.  
  
“So how'd it go?” he asks, not missing the dark clouds on the horizon for a second.  
  
Loki folds himself into the front passenger seat. “As expected,” he says, and if it wasn't for the shadows around his eyes, Tony might assume that was a good thing.  
  
“Right, sure. So that's it? Can we head back to New York and get this forced concord over with?”  
  
Loki leans back as far as he can in the car seat and shuts his eyes. He looks exhausted, and Thor sees it too, if the way his lips thin is any indication. Tony can practically see how the thunder god is restraining himself from touching his younger brother.  
  
“Yes,” Loki says. He doesn't sound nearly as wrecked as he looks, but Tony learned ages ago not to trust anything that comes out of Loki's mouth, whether it be words or tone.  
  
Tony faces forward again and starts the car. “Great,” he says. “Great.”  
  
#  
  
It's Loki's turn to doze off, though the only clue that he's actually asleep is his steady, even breathing in spite of Thor's continuing commentary as they navigate DC traffic. Neither Tony or Thor make any effort to wake Loki up, and Thor manages to exercise somewhat impressive volume control in his efforts to not interrupt Loki's beauty rest. It makes him a little easier to tune out, and it makes the next few miles a little less horrible.  
  
Traffic is bad, even for a Saturday, and they're at a stand-still on the outer corridor when Tony's curiosity finally gets the better of him and he looks back to Thor. “Want to tell me what happened in there?”  
  
Thor's brow creases. “You are not meant to know.”  
  
“Yeah, yeah, I get that, but come on. Spending an entire Saturday with you guys in a fucking _LeSabre_ wasn't really on my weekend to-do list, you know? Throw me something here.”  
  
Thor stays silent, but whether that's because he's thinking or because he's trying to put an end to the questions, Tony has no idea. He just turns back around and inches the LeSabre up a bit. It's not progress, exactly, but it's better than standing still.  
  
“See? This is why I like Malibu. You know what the traffic is like Malibu?” He knows Thor doesn't, so he continues. “Non-existent. Because no one can afford the gas in Malibu.” He drums his fingers against the steering wheel. “Except people like me, of course, which is great because everyone on the road knows everyone else and there's a whole caste system going on. I'm king of the road. Literally, almost. They see me and everyone steers clear. It's great.”  
  
“They are testing him.”  
  
Tony glances up at Thor's reflection in his rearview. “Hm?”  
  
Thor sighs. “Loki has allied himself with us, but his loyalties have shifted before. Director Fury recognizes this and has set a division aside to push Loki to the utmost limitations of his sorcery so that they may find a way to hold him should he prove untrustworthy.”  
  
A lightbulb flips on in Tony's mind. “A fail safe. They're trying to get a fail safe together so they can try and control him if they need to.”  
  
“I suppose.” Thor looks thoroughly uncomfortable. “It's dishonorable. That Loki conceded to the tests at all is proof of his loyalty, is it not?”  
  
Tony hesitates. “I don't know, buddy,” he says finally. “I'm pretty sure his hocus pocus is nowhere near as powerful as his vocabulary.”  
  
Maybe Loki isn't as asleep as Tony thought he was, because the corner of his mouth quirks up in what might be the start of a smile. Tony opts to pretend he didn't see it. Thor huffs and turns toward the window.  
  
“You do not know my brother as I do.”  
  
Tony shakes his head and inches the car up in the lane. “That's probably better for all of us.”  
  
#  
  
When the traffic subsides and they get moving again, Tony takes them as far into Maryland as he can before he has to pull into a gas station. Thor has been sulking since their brief exchange, so feeling just a little bad Tony hands him a twenty dollar bill and points him to the convenience store.  
  
“How about you go grab some snacks?” he asks, and Thor lights up immediately. Tony wonders if the SHIELD cronies thought to feed them at all. It's hard to tell with Thor's appetite, but Tony knows he didn't stop the car for any food breaks on the way there and his stomach, which is used to some mild food deprivation, is starting to protest.  
  
“I will return post haste,” Thor promises, taking off his seat belt.  
  
“Yeah, you do that.” Tony waits until Thor is on his way inside before he gets out to fill up the LeSabre. He's done long before Thor is, and he slips back into the driver's seat to find Loki staring at him. He startles, just a little, and then stares back.  
  
“Whoever blinks first walks home.”  
  
That smile tugs at Loki's lips again. “It seems I would be the loser in either scenario, given my limited experience with automobiles.”  
  
“Most of us call them 'cars', you know.”  
  
“Semantics.”  
  
“Yeah, whatever.” His eyes start to water. Loki doesn't seem to be experiencing any discomfort at all. Still, when Tony does finally blink, the god does as well. It's a diplomatic sort of solution, really. Not that Tony would have held to the terms of the bet either way, but...  
  
“Are they really trying to figure out how to control you?”  
  
Loki's eyebrows go up almost imperceptibly. “Your concern is touching, Stark.”  
  
He scowls and looks away. “It's just a question. Thor says they want to understand your limitations. Is that all that's going on? Because I know how SHIELD operates, and they never go through all that effort unless they think they have something to gain.”  
  
“Keeping me from destroying your world on a whim is something of a gain, wouldn't you say?”  
  
“Figuring out how to harness your magic and use it for their own interests is a bigger one.” He watches Loki out of the corner of his eye. The god doesn't even look thoughtful. Just blank. “...that's messed up. You knew the whole time and you still agreed to all this?”  
  
Loki shrugs. “They required it of me as a term of my redemption.”  
  
“It's still messed up.”  
  
Loki doesn't respond. He instead reaches over Tony to grasp the steering wheel. “I’ve some interest in this.”  
  
“In the car? It's a LeSabre. A really old LeSabre. Most people are too smart to drive them anymore.” Tony frowns. “Probably why they put us in it, actually. In case things took a turn for the worse.”  
  
“I was speaking more of the action than the object.”  
  
Tony looks to him, startled. “You want to learn to drive? Why? You can teleport. You did it yesterday. I _saw_ you.”  
  
Loki disregards his shock. “It seems a useful skill.”  
  
“Yeah, but...” But no one in their right mind was going to issue Loki a driver's license, much less get behind the wheel with him. SHIELD would absolutely flip if they heard about it. Then again, it was probably easier to track someone in a car than it was to track someone who could teleport. Maybe SHIELD would learn to appreciate it.  
  
Yeah. Really, he'd be doing them a favor.  
  
“What the hell,” Tony says. “I've done more suicidal things. Why not?” He slides out of the driver's seat and gestures for Loki to take his vacated spot while he circles the car to climb into the passenger seat. Loki teleports into the driver's seat like an asshole. Tony manages to ignore that.  
  
“It is rather cramped,” Loki complains.  
  
Tony rolls his eyes. “Only because you're made of legs. Move the seat back.”  
  
It takes Loki a try or two to figure out how to do it, but he does eventually manage it and he pushes the seat as far back as it will go. His being at the wheel is still the most bizarre thing Tony has seen in a really long time, but now that his knees aren't crammed up somewhere near his shoulders the god at least looks a little less ridiculous.  
  
Tony explains the basics behind driving – the brakes, the gas pedal, how to steer, and so on – and Loki mimes the action semi-obediently. Eventually, he looks to Tony.  
  
“And that is all? It seems rather straightforward.”  
  
“Well, yeah, more or less. It's a little harder when you're actually moving, but that's sort of the high-level overview right there...” He reaches for the door handle. “Okay, let's switch back and --”  
  
He's cut off by the revving of the car engine and he looks down at his hand to triple-check that he's still holding the keys. He is, because he is definitely not stupid enough to hand them to Loki and risk something exactly like this happening, and so he shoots Loki a look. “How?”  
  
“Magic,” Loki reminds him, and he laughs as the car surges forward, out of the gas station and back toward the main road.  
  
Tony turns in his seat in time to see Thor, his arms full of snack food, staring after them from the gas station door, and then Loki takes the car around a curve and the blond disappears from sight. Tony jerks back around to face forward.  
  
“No! Fuck no! Stop the car!”  
  
Loki scoffs. “Relax, Stark. It's just a bit of fun.”  
  
“Dying in a fiery ball of exploding car death is not my idea of fun, Loki!”  
  
“I should clarify,” Loki says, and barely avoids ramming into a minivan as he merges onto the highway. “I meant fun for _me_.”  
  
#  
  
He'll give Loki a little credit: his alien reflexes ensure they don't actually hit anyone, and when Tony manages to loosen his death-grip on the door, he can sort of appreciate how quickly Loki picks everything up. It only makes things moderately less terrifying, but since he probably doesn't need to worry for his life, he shelves his terror away for later.  
  
He's pretty sure Loki cheats, because otherwise he doesn't know how they could possibly have made it to Nevada with only the one tank of gas and in less than three hours, but the bastard is so subtle about it that Tony hardly even cares. Loki has even figured out how to work the radio and has found a good station Tony actually approves, but seeing as how the LeSabre is older than dirt and they've crossed not only state lines but also time zones, he suspects Loki cheated there, too.  
  
Tony is beginning to think Loki's “cheating” maybe isn't so bad when he spies some familiar billboards along the side of the road. He tries to talk himself out of it for about three seconds before rationalizing that everyone _wants_ him to get to know and bond with Loki, and so he nudges the god.  
  
“Hey, make a left up here.”  
  
Loki doesn't look at him, but he arches an eyebrow. “Whatever for?”  
  
“Because I'm going to show you the best – and the worst, actually – that Earth has to offer.”  
  
“Hm. In other words?”  
  
Tony grins. “Vegas, baby!”  
  
#  
  
Unsurprisingly, Loki's cheating is not limited to cross-country road trips and infinitely good radio reception, and between the two of them they completely obliterate both the Bellagio and the Venetian, though Tony has a stab of remorse and intentionally loses about half their winnings when he sees the dealer start to tear up. After that he shows Loki the finer points of champagne rooms and buffets (and it turns out he was right, that SHIELD or whoever didn't think to feed either Thor or Loki while they were holed up in the compound) and Loki makes a few establishments seriously regret their “all you can eat” policy.  
  
Loki has nothing but scorn for magic shows and apparently finds showgirls dull, but his interest is immediately peaked by the Elvis impersonators lining up outside the Palazzo and he spends almost an hour drinking ridiculously expensive scotch and pointing out the differences between each and every one of them to Tony, who is drunk enough to find his critique absolutely riveting.  
  
Most of the rest of the day becomes a blur. Later Tony vaguely remembers Loki placing one more huge bet at the craps table and winning a hotel room and a car instead of cash – or maybe paying for both with whatever cash he's won, Tony isn't sure – and he has some recollection of cool hands against his skin, but he wakes up in the bathtub the next morning so hungover he doesn't give it much thought.  
  
Loki at least managed to pass out on the bed instead of in the bathroom, but he isn't in any better shape than Tony, so they spend a few hours in misery before Loki feels well enough to magic the rest of their symptoms away. It's only then that Tony bothers checking his phone and listening to his voicemail. When he finally gets through the many and increasingly frantic messages from Pepper, the twenty-odd and incredibly loud diatribes from Fury, and the single, very perplexed message from Bruce, he hangs up and looks to Loki.  
  
“All right, playtime is over. Time to head back to New York.”  
  
Loki looks up from the call-girl cards he's apparently alphabetizing or something and arches an eyebrow. “So soon?”  
  
“Yeah, it seems our big boy bonding time is making people nervous. Let's collect the car and get out of here before they send the big guns after us.”  
  
“Mm. Very well. The LeSabre or the Benz?”  
  
As though it's even a question. “The Benz. SHIELD will thank us for it later.” He points at Loki. “And we can use your shortcuts, but I'm driving, so don't get any funny ideas.”  
  
The corners of Loki's mouth quirk up. “Mm. Well, if you insist.”  
  
#  
  
Driving through Manhattan is as much of a nightmare as ever, but this time they don't hit a single red light. Tony isn't sure if SHIELD is doing that to get them back under wraps as quickly as possible or if it's a side effect of Loki's ebbing interest in their road trip, and he doesn't ask. All he does is snap off the radio once they near the tower and look to the god.  
  
“So one last thing.”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“There's a saying we have here. Goes like this: what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Okay?”  
  
“Hm. Then how do you intend to explain away the new car?”  
  
Tony shakes his head. “Leave that to me. Just... Let's try and keep the mystery alive, okay? I don't need everyone thinking I can be won over so easy, that's all. Got it?”  
  
Loki shrugs. “Of course.”  
  
“Okay. Good. Thanks.”  
  
“Think nothing of it.” He undoes his seatbelt as Tony pulls into the drive. “Though if I'd only known of the Vegas pact of silence sooner...”  
  
He glances at him, parking the car. Black-suited agents are already rushing their way. “It doesn't apply to murder.”  
  
The smile Loki offers him is without a doubt a predatory one. “Believe me, it was not murder I had on my mind last night.”  
  
With that, Loki slides out of the car, and it takes Tony a good thirty seconds to pull himself together enough to do the same. A distressed SHIELD agent takes the keys from Tony and starts verbally lamenting the loss of the LeSabre. Another agent takes Loki aside and leads him into the tower. They're flanked by six more agents, and that leaves Tony more or less alone. He doesn't mind so much. He waits until Loki is out of sight before he heads inside.  
  
Clint meets him at the door. “So what happened? I guess you guys didn't kill each other, but --”  
  
“It's fine, Clint. Everything is fine.” He scrubs at his face with his hand. “I think I need a drink.”  
  
“Yeah, yeah, sure.” He peers around Tony to look outside. “That's not a SHIELD car, is it? Doesn't look like a SHIELD car.”  
  
“Is now.”  
  
“All right. Cool.” He pauses. “Where's Thor?”  
  
Tony groans and heads for his lab. “I knew we forgot something,” he mumbles, and has JARVIS seal off all the doors before anyone else can bother him.  
  
He really does need that drink.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to [tumblr](http://a-to-zyxt.tumblr.com/post/54319686360/frostiron-27-open-road).


End file.
